Evo Morales: ‘You can’t combat terrorism with military spending or military force’

Following the US-ordered take down of his Presidential jet at the height of the Snowden Affair, Bolivian leader Evo Morales has established the moral high ground above the blow-hard, floundering United States diplomatic halfway house.UN Speech: Bolivia’s Morales Addresses Imperialism, Terrorism and Social Justice

Morales noted some of his achievements in his almost 8 years of presidency, including decrease in mother/child mortality, complete eradication of illiteracy (as declared by UNESCO), and the elevation of 10% of his population out of poverty and into the middle class.

He suggested moving the UN Headquarters to a country that abides by UN policy, noting that it was a form of terrorism to be issued a visa for such a short span of time that it forced him to have to nervously keep consulting his watch.

Taking further note of his imperialist brother to the north, Morales muses, how does one fight terrorism?

His answer: “You do not combat terrorism with more military spending or by training more military forces. As far as I know you fight terrorism with social policies, not with military bases, you fight it with religious tolerance, with more democracy, more equality, more justice and more education.”

Regarding the US Morales says, “What peace can we speak of when military spending sacrifices the human rights of our peoples? How is it possible, when there are so many unemployed, for your (US) government, for your president, to spend 700 billion dollars on the military? It is not possible for these huge amounts of money to be spent on the military and on espionage when there are so many brothers and sisters in the United States without homes, without jobs, without schooling. I simply cannot understand how they can spend so much money to interfere in other countries while leaving their own unprovided for.”

In addition, Morales suggested that “we think seriously about constituting a Tribunal of the People with international bodies and the large defenders of human rights to begin a lawsuit against the Obama government” (for crimes against humanity. See previous article here.)

The audio of Morales’ 40-minute speech can be heard here, in translation.

UPDATED 09.26.13 9:45 am EST: A full transcript of Morales’ speech was not made available by the UN. An edited summary is available at the link above, but in this writer’s opinion is not fully representative of his words. Therefore, at the current time, listening to the audio is the only way to fully understand this provocative speech.

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